Christian protesters teargassed
2006-04-16 20:52
Alexandria - Police fired teargas
at crowds of Christians throwing stones and brandishing long
knives in the Egyptian city of Alexandria on Sunday, the third
day of strife triggered by the killing of a Christian.
Groups of Muslims also clashed with the police and with the
Coptic Christians, who are angry that police failed to stop a
man from stabbing six Christians in two Alexandria churches.
At least five people were wounded in the clashes and a
Muslim man died early in the day from wounds received in
Saturday's violence, a hospital source said.
Mustafa Said
Meshal, in his forties, had been clubbed on the head.
About 30 other people were wounded on Saturday in clashes
after the funeral of the 67-year-old man stabbed dead on Friday.
Cars were burnt and shop windows smashed.
On Sunday crowds attacked at least two cars and stripped
them of anything portable.
Police arrested 55 people - five of
them Copts and the rest Muslims, police sources said.
Machetes
Witnesses said they saw groups of young Christian men brandishing machetes and long knives as they faced police lines near one of
the two churches.
Some carried large crosses made of wooden
poles lashed together.
A group of Muslims attacked the police and the Copts from
the other direction but later dispersed.
A separate group of
people campaigning for communal peace paraded in the same area.
The authorities say the man who killed one Copt and wounded
five on Friday was mentally ill, but Copts and human rights
groups have cast doubt on that account, saying it takes more
than a few hours to establish a man's mental condition.
An interior ministry source said the man was taking revenge
for insults to the Prophet Muhammad, apparently a reference to
cartoons of the Prophet published mainly in European newspapers.
Christian demonstrators in Alexandria said the authorities
were trying to make excuses for what some Copts saw as
increasing attacks on Christians.
Three people died in Alexandria in clashes with the police
in October during protests by Muslims over a church play which
they said was offensive to Islam.
Coptic Christians comprise between five and 10% of
Egypt's 73 million people, most of whom are Sunni Muslims.
Relations between the two communities are usually peaceful,
but there are occasional outbreaks of violence, often over
Christian women who convert to Islam and marry Muslims.